4 ms·

Speaking as a NZer who's parents have a flag flying high outside their house (rural, with B&B), I disagree. My parents love countries where the flag is flown pr

Speaking as a NZer who's parents have a flag flying high outside their house (rural, with B&B), I disagree. My parents love countries where the flag is flown proudly - Canada being a great example where it's everywhere to be seen, Bhutan even more so. But my parents don't feel the same, mostly because they don't feel particularly patriotic about the current Kiwi flag. They partly fly it because they wish there was some sort of patriotism associated with it and they feel that flying it might help that, but partly just because it helps guests find their house when they're staying at the B&B. Given the NZ flag's Union Jack and very close resemblance to the Australian flag I can understand why people don't feel too strongly about the current state of affairs. There's nothing evocative, nothing that feels distinctive to NZ. How many NZ flags do you see being waved at sporting events compared to silver ferns and the like? Almost none. Based on that alone I think it's high time we shrugged off the flag's colonial roots and changed it to something that's uniquely NZ. It might take a while for people to adjust to the change (after all, people generally don't like change), but in the long run people will support it just because it's truly ours.

utunga 11y ago
The comment you were replying to didn't examine why people don't fly flags in front of their houses merely stated that they don't. I can't see how you could disagree with that - it's very self evidently true. He also stated that most New Zealander's don't really care about the flag. Poll data also strongly backs this up. In terms of subjective opinions, however, OK yes you might feel that it would be nice if people in New Zealand flew their flag more and/or were more patriotic generally. You're definitely entitled to your opinion. Personally as a kiwi the common sense lack of patriotism and/or nationalism is one of the things I like best about the place. It relates to a general no-nonsense pragmatism that I find a breath of fresh air after years in the united states where simply pointing out that maybe the US could learn a thing or two from other countries (in certain areas, not including pizza, software or spaceflight of course) is met with emotion instead of rationality.
philliphaydon 11y ago
I don't get the resemblance to the Australian flag because nz registered its flag years before australia did. So technically the Australian flag resemblabes our own. Regardless as a kiwi I wish they would leave the damn flag alone. This is as bad as wanting to give the north and south island official names. Instead of just calling them the north and south island.

utunga 11y ago

The comment you were replying to didn't examine why people don't fly flags in front of their houses merely stated that they don't. I can't see how you could disagree with that - it's very self evidently true. He also stated that most New Zealander's don't really care about the flag. Poll data also strongly backs this up. In terms of subjective opinions, however, OK yes you might feel that it would be nice if people in New Zealand flew their flag more and/or were more patriotic generally. You're definitely entitled to your opinion. Personally as a kiwi the common sense lack of patriotism and/or nationalism is one of the things I like best about the place. It relates to a general no-nonsense pragmatism that I find a breath of fresh air after years in the united states where simply pointing out that maybe the US could learn a thing or two from other countries (in certain areas, not including pizza, software or spaceflight of course) is met with emotion instead of rationality.

philliphaydon 11y ago

I don't get the resemblance to the Australian flag because nz registered its flag years before australia did. So technically the Australian flag resemblabes our own. Regardless as a kiwi I wish they would leave the damn flag alone. This is as bad as wanting to give the north and south island official names. Instead of just calling them the north and south island.